Abstract:
Objective To evaluate the utility of glomerular filtration rate (GFR) values derived from 99Tcm-diethyleue-triaminepentaacetic acid (DTPA) radionuclide renal dynamic imaging and dual plasma method in patients with mild-to-moderate renal impairment.
Methods A retrospective analysis was conducted on 87 adult patients (49 males and 38 females with an average age of 45.56±11.29 years) with mild-to-moderate renal dysfunction registered in the Nuclear Medicine Department of Huanggang Central Hospital from January 2019 to December 2022. All the patients underwent 99Tcm-DTPA renal dynamic imaging, and their GFRs were determined using the Gate's method and recorded as gGFR after correction. Blood samples at 2 h and 4 h were collected for each patient. Their GFRs were then calculated using single- and dual-plasma sampling methods and denoted as GFR2h, GFR4h, and dGFR. The patients were divided into two groups: 52 cases with mild (60 ml/(min·1.73 m2)≤dGFR<90 ml/(min·1.73 m2)) and 35 cases with moderate (30 ml/(min·1.73 m2)≤dGFR<60 ml/(min·1.73 m2)) groups according to their dGFR. Within-group and between-group comparisons were performed using paired t-tests. The correlation between the two methods was analyzed with Pearson correlation analysis.
Results For the 52 patients in the mild group, the dGFR ((72.33±7.12) ml/(min·1.73 m2)) significantly differed from the gGFR ((78.92±19.56) ml/(min·1.73 m2)), GFR2h ((38.87±4.14) ml/(min·1.73 m2)), and GFR4h ((65.69±4.95) ml/(min·1.73 m2)) (t=−2.84, 50.55, 20.64; P<0.05) with correlation r values of 0.55, 0.76, and 0.99, respectively. For the 35 patients in the moderate group, the dGFR ((46.73±8.42) ml/(min·1.73 m2)) significantly differed from the gGFR ((55.71±15.80) ml/(min·1.73 m2)), GFR2h ((26.68±8.15) ml/(min·1.73 m2)), and GFR4h ((45.47±7.70) ml/(min·1.73 m2)) (t=−3.91, 21.67, 3.37; P<0.05) with correlation r values of 0.51, 0.76, and 0.97, respectively.
Conclusions GFR measurement using the radionuclide method is valuable in the diagnosis of patients with mild-to-moderate renal dysfunction. GFR4h (GFR at 4 h measured with single-plasma sampling method) is suitable, but GFR2h is not. The combination of 4 h single-plasma sampling method and renal dynamic imaging nephrography is recommended for the evaluation of bilateral and partial kidney function.